This quarter is April through June. That period includes the April 5th ShoXC event, the first CBS show and the Noons/Edwards card.

Revenue:
Live events: 2,027,351
PPV/TV licensing 178,866
Showtime/CBS 925,000
Other 346,442

total 3,686,659

Here is what they spent to make that 3.6 million:
Live events: 2,865,002
PPV/TV licensing 17.425
Showtime/CBS 500,000

Non-cash amortization of prepaid distribution costs and expense for vesting warrants – Showtime, CBS (This includes the decrease in value of warrents issued to Showtime and CBS) 3,183,562
internet 34,237

Total cost of revenue: 6,683,697

So on the shows, they lost 2,997,046

Operating expenses were 15,694,761
They managed to cut back on the internet expesnses a bit, it ended up being 666,201 for the quarter.
Admin expenses were also down: 3,247,117 vs. 4.39 million in the same period last year.

However, they had 10.292 million in impairment charges. As I understand it, this is the declining value of assets. This is not nec talking about physical assets, but could mean Cage Rage or other brands they have purchased as well as the value of merchandising rights and whatnot…if you don’t completely understand that, don’t feel bad as I have only a mild grasp of it.

The overall loss for the quarter was 18,719,364.

Overall losses for the first half of 08: 24,390,236

One thing I found interesting was that while they got 900k from CBS/Showtime, it cost them 500k. So Adding CBS brought them only 400k. As I had pointed out at the time of the deal, the actual amount that CBS is paying is little.

Elite actually made more (1.2 million) in the first three months of the year just with Showtime.

As of the end of June, Elite had 3,460, 239 in cash. So Elite has about the same amount of cash right now as they did at the end of the first quarter (3.6 million at that time).

As has been said elsewhere, Elite is looking to secure more financing so they can continue.

Elite will be a leaner company from here on out, with fewer employees. This is not going to make things better all by itself, but will help.

The key for Elite will be using the next CBS show (or two) to build for PPV. It goes without saying that they need to deliver strong ratings for the next one or they will be in critical condition. A poor rating will make it hard to get advertisers to sign on board for a fourth show. Bad ratings and poor advertising revenue would cause CBS to dump them.

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More likely, PE keeps these guys on payroll so that they could make the executive management transitions nice and quiet without too much public mudslinging. Also, you don’t get to be an executive at that level without being pretty friendly with the rest of the board, who are a group of people who would want a “golden parachute” themselves if they were in Shaw’s/DeLuca’s position of being let go. Shaw and DeLuca have also, no doubt, put a lot of their friends and trusted employees in important roles within EliteXC/ProElite, and the PE board would not want them to take these people with them and gut the company if they gave them the axe.

Also…

This has been on my mind for quite some time, but at the risk of sounding politically incorrect in the politics of MMA, I’m not sold on the drawing power of Gina Carano. EliteXC’s stars are always mentioned jointly, as in “Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano….” But I don’t think that is accurate. I think Kimbo Slice had a lot of YouTube hype, and a general interest in his image and story. The buzz around him brought a huge audience to the first CBS show, and Carano was merely peripheral to Kimbo. Whether Kimbo will maintain that buzz remains to be seen, but I am fairly certain that Carano does not have the drawing power that many believe. While it seems clichéd among MMA articles and blogs to say “Gina Carano and [her opponent] stole the show…,” I have never heard any casual buzz about Carano. Kimbo, on the other hand, was talked about around the office and the sports bars like few others.

While the comparisons aren’t exact, women’s boxing has never proven a draw. In this case, I have a hard time imagining Carano ever being able to headline a show. People may point to her being on “American Gladiators,” but if anything, she has drawn more MMA fans to watch that show, not the other way around. Even if you could make the best possible women’s MMA match, Gina Carano vs. Tara LaRosa, you still wouldn’t even generate as much interest as some of EliteXC’s lesser stars, like Diaz or Lawler. A Carano/LaRosa or a Carano/Cyborg match would barely sell a single ticket, or get a single advertiser more than would already be on board based on the real headlining fight on that card. Sure, she’s easy on the eyes, and Carano may be worth all the hype as a fighter, but the real myth is in her drawing power.

That leaves EliteXC with their one and only “star,” and his invincibility was seriously called into question on the May 31 show. Kimbo alone won’t save the company, and at this point, I’m not sure there is much that will.

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i never understood their policy of feeding guys to kimbo, and if they keep doing it, they will shoot themselves in the foot by weakening his long term marketability.

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There might be a couple of reasons for such a dramatically higher price someone would be willing to pay for a low-volume, minimal-action, micro-cap stock. Usually it has more to do with internal deals than it does just some random public investor who decides they want a piece of the company.

I obviously can’t say for sure, but if the asking price was $2.50, and someone decides to pay $8, unless that new investor is insane, it is probably due to some other agreement made for reasons totally outside of the stock sale. The first reason might be a current large investor wanting to up the capital resources of the company without dealing with the tax issues creating by simply transferring or loaning that amount of money to the company from another corporation or a personal account. Say you have a large investor, like CBS perhaps, that wants to infuse money into PE. Instead of a transfer or loan, they simply agree to buy the stock at an inflated price, in effect, giving a temporary boost to the capital resources PE now has on hand because of the difference between the actual and the inflated prices.

The problem with this is, although I don’t know the trading volume of PE, the 5,300 shares doesn’t seem like it would be enough to infuse a substantial amount of capital, even if they were bought at over 300% the previous market price.

Another theory might be that this was arranged as part of a severance package to someone (likely an executive) that is cashing out their PE stock upon termination of their contract. The severance package/termination agreement might have included an agreement that the company, or the board, will buy back the stock interests of that particular executive at an inflated price, sort of like a severance bonus. With the way ProElite/EliteXC is canning executives, this is probably a likely scenario.

This is just speculation, but hopefully it adds minor insight into some possible scenarios for the stock price jump.

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Strikeforce and Elite have done shows together because of a legal settlement, but starting having problems backstage at the very first show.

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I wasn’t suggesting a merger. I’m suggesting the smaller promotions form an alliance of some kind where they at least cooperate. Example: An Affliction fighter fights on a ProElite card. As part of the Alliance Affliction may pay some or all of their fighter’s salary. ProElite can retain the primary branding but the fight with the Affliction fighter could be labeled a special attraction with co branding or heavy promotion for the next Affliction show. My point is essentially these other promotions can’t survive with the talent pool spread so thin. Affliction has some great fighters but they still need to build mid tier depth. All of the mid tier guys are sucked up by these other folks. Now you have the AFL trying to do a PPV. That is going to tank. Their only chance is cooperation.

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Will CBS own a majority any time soon? No, but they would continue to gain more power the longer that Elite is on CBS.

Elite is not going out of business, anyone that thought they were does not understand the business side of MMA.

But there certainly is reason to be skeptical about Elite’s future. They have yet to run a profitable show and still have not created any bonifide stars. The idea was the Kimbo would draw folks and once they would see guys like Lawler. At that point, Lawler would become a star.

That did not happen, despite two very exciting matches on national tv.

Elite will continue forward, but it is going to require more money from CBS.

I mentioned this in a post on the previous story, but I think Elite has at least two more CBS shows. If they have not developed a solid base and do not deliver solid ratings, they are likely in big trouble.

Personally, I would be curious to know how much CBS had to do with the personel changes at Elite.

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You should be ASHAMED Caplan.

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The salaries for Doug DeLuca, Kelly Perdew and Gary Shaw for 2007 are listed on the sec link posted above. There is no need to speculate about that it’s in the report too.

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People wonder why Antonio Silva got $200,000 in July and it’s because he re-signed right after Joe Silva was very complementary towards him while speaking at a UFC Fight Club Q&A.

With the UFC identified as a viable alternative for Silva, EliteXC was left with the choice of paying him extra to re-sign with the company or risk losing him to the UFC and appear as nothing more than a feeder league to the UFC.

There are many who perceive EliteXC to be an inferior brand to the UFC, but it’s hard to call them a feeder league if they’ve retained all of their top fighters.

If Slice doesn’t take what EliteXC offers him, what other company can he look to to help drive his asking price up?

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The point with being able to pay guys is, if they only focus on 3-5 events per year, they cannot keep their guys busy enough to have them as exclusive fighters for their promotion.

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I have concerns about the next show. It will go up against serious competition in the form of the sports you mentioned, which will hurt the demo they need. The UFC will also put on a PPV replay against it, probably UFC 86 to try to get Jackson/Griffin on at the same time as Kimbo. Do we even know what kind of bonuses Kimbo has written into his contract besides his salary? I have a feeling he has a pretty big contract, can they even afford it now?

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